President Clinton last night presented to a sharply partisan
Congress a vision of a "new social compact" between a nation committed
to civic responsibility and a centrist government that is cheaper, more
effective and less intrusive.

In his longest address as president and one that rang with as many
Republican themes as traditionally Democratic ones, Clinton said, "We
must forge a new social compact to meet the challenges of the time."
That compact, an updated version of his 1992 "new covenant" campaign
theme, must be grounded, he said, in the tenets that "opportunity and
responsibility . . . go hand in hand; we can't have one without the
other, and our national community can't hold together without both."

With House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) looming behind him as a
visible reminder of Democratic reversals under his political leadership
and as a barometer of GOP support or opposition to his words, Clinton
delivered his third  and most comprehensive  State of the Union
address.

He offered no new massive government efforts, like the health care
plan that was the foundation of his address from the podium only a year
ago.

Instead, Clinton, the first Democratic president since Harry S.
Truman to address a Congress controlled by Republicans, bowed to the
political imperative of redefining a more centrist, visionary
presidency.

Instead of offering new government efforts, the president defended
those he implemented, saying he will fight to preserve the ban on
assault weapons as well as his economic recovery, childhood
immunization, early childhood education and veterans programs.

But when cutting, Clinton said, it should be remembered "that
government still has important responsibilities. Our young people hold
our future in their hands. We still owe a debt to our veterans. And our
senior citizens have made us what we are. Now my budget cuts a lot, but
it protects education, veterans, Social Security and Medicare, and I
hope you will do the same thing."

Instead of calling for new government regulations, Clinton defended
the results of government regulation to date: "I applaud your desire to
get rid of costly and unnecessary regulations, but when we deregulate,
let's remember what national action in the national interest has given
us: Safer food for our families, safer toys for our children, safer
nursing homes for our parents, safer cars and highways, and safer
workplaces, cleaner air and cleaner water."

Clinton welcomed tax-cutting, regulation-trimming, program-shaving
and government-shrinking, all dear to the heart of Republicans and none
of his major themes his first two years. William Kristol, the GOP
analyst, called the address the "most conservative State of the Union by
a Democratic president in history."

While the language was markedly centrist for Clinton, many
Republicans were not appeased. They applauded wildly when Clinton hit
their political hot buttons: smaller government, tax reductions, less
bureaucracy. But they glowered or sat on their hands when he invoked his
own  gun control; government programs that he believes work; his
version of the crime bill, not theirs; his version of welfare reform,
not theirs.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) summed up the partisanship when he said,
"I have been to 15 of these and I haven't seen an occasion when one
party was doing the applauding and the other was sitting on its hands. I
think that bodes a very tough year ahead."

If the theme was Clinton's favored "new covenant" updated from his
1992 campaign, the list of ingredients was almost endless, with
everything from the Mexican peso to teenage pregnancy to arms control
tossed in. The most enduring theme was the acknowledgment  actual and
implied  that the president was changing to a more centrist course and
regretted how his first two years progressed.

"I have made my mistakes, and I have learned again the importance
of humility in all human endeavor," Clinton said. But he asserted the
country is better off than it was two years ago and called on
Republicans and Democrats alike to "put aside partisanship and pettiness
and pride" to do the business of democracy.

The lesson of the last two elections, he said, was, "We didn't hear
America singing. We heard American shouting." To that shouting, he said,
"We . . . must say: We hear you. We will work together to earn the jobs
you have given us."

And in outlining the problem he said he is set to tackle, he said
the nation's "civil life is suffering. . . . Citizens are working
together less and shouting at each other more. The common bonds of
community which have been the great strength of this country from its
beginning are badly frayed." The challenge of democracy, he said, is to
repair that.

The president bluntly challenged Republicans to come along with him
on political reform  he pointedly advised them to simply stop
accepting gifts from lobbyists while working on a bill to forbid them.
He offered a kinder, gentler version of welfare reform, and vowed to
protect Medicare and other programs from cuts to pay for GOP tax
reductions.

In the end, his most compelling call was more to the institutions
and people of the nation than to the Congress he no longer controls, if
he ever did. He challenged a broad range of the country's institutions,
from the entertainment industry in Hollywood, to corporate America, to
community leaders, to religious leaders to move forward with their
freedoms, but to exert more responsibility.

His charge to the television industry, in particular, was greeted
with bipartisan roars of approval. He applauded the creativity and
success of the entertainment industry but said that "you do have a
responsibility to assess the impact of your work and to understand the
damage that comes from the incessant, repetitive and mindless violence
and irresponsible conduct that permeates our media."

After more than an hour of speech, the president closed
with a lyrical tribute to the history of Americans working together for
their neighbors, their country or to solve problems beyond their own.
"We all gain when we give," he said. "That's at the heart of this New
Covenant."

New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who delivered the GOP
response from the Statehouse in Trenton, turned traditions by ignoring
Democratic proposals and calling, instead, for a Clinton commitment to
GOP proposals to reduce taxes, balance the budget, and wrest power from
Washington and return it to the states.

Whitman said Clinton "sounded pretty Republican" at times in his
address, but she said he had pushed through a large tax increase and
opposed the balanced budget amendment. "If he has changed his big
government agenda," she said, "we say great. Join us as we change
America."

And speaking directly to Clinton, Whitman said the voters in
November had "sounded a warning" to Clinton and given a mandate to
Republicans to produce a smaller government, lower taxes, less
regulation. Republicans, she said, accept that mandate. "President
Clinton," she said, "you must accept it as well."

Symbolizing just how much Clinton has had to retrench, the
president took up health care reform  the central pledge and defining
issue of his first two years  only at mid-speech, outlining a list of
incremental reforms that sound much like the step-by-step proposals
Republicans favor, including insurance industry reform, making insurance
more portable so it moves with the employee to a new job and expanding
coverage for children.

It was only a year ago when Clinton used most of his State of the
Union address to outline an audacious and broad reform of the health
care system and to hold up sternly his black pen and pledge that no law
that did not guarantee coverage to every American would escape his veto.

This year, there were no explicit threats of vetoes, though Clinton
pledged to fight for initiatives the GOP has pledged to turn back, such
as banning assault weapons and the national service program.

To add visual emphasis to his pledge to fight for national service,
which has been denounced by Gingrich, the Clinton White House packed the
presidential box at the address with national service volunteers from
around the country.

The president's speech was constructed around his call for a new
economy to bring the nation into the 21st century, a new government put
in place for the new century, and a new national and domestic security
system for a post-Cold War world that has no anti-Soviet organizing
principle.

Outlining his reformed government, Clinton said, "We cannot ask
Americans to be better citizens if we are not better servants." He said
he would fight for political reform, including an end to free gifts to
Congress from lobbyists, overall lobbying reform and campaign finance
reform that would provide free television time for candidates.

In a segment with particular appeal to California and other states
with severe immigration problems, the president pledged stronger efforts
to stop illegal immigration, listing that area as one of the few in
government that will grow. He broadly endorsed recommendations of the
commission led by former congresswoman Barbara Jordan, including a
controversial proposal to better identify legal workers. But he is
expected to move more slowly than Jordan recommended.

In describing the economy, Clinton made a broad pitch for what he
calls the "Middle Class Bill of Rights," his proposals to give tax
breaks targeted at the middle class, and contrast that with GOP plans
that include reductions for the wealthy. He called for an increase in
the current $4.25-an-hour minimum wage but specified no amount.

Symbolizing how fearful the White House is of Clinton's being
labled a liberal captive of traditional Democratic groups such as
organized labor, the president signed off on a proposal to raise the
wage to $5 per hour over the next two years but decided to call on
Congress only to work with him to find an agreeable increase.

Clinton, pointing out that members of Congress by the end of
January will already have made more in 1995 than a minimum-wage worker
will make all year, said Congress should work with him to "make a living
wage out of the minimum wage."

Many Republicans flatly object to such an increase, arguing it will
kill jobs at the entry level. Asked if Clinton lacked the political
courage to announce publicly a proposal he signed off on and backs,
White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta said yesterday that the lack
of specifics was a sign that the president was realistic and would not
"posture" with a proposal that had no hope in Congress.

And repeating a constant White House refrain, Clinton challenged the
Republican Congress to specify how it would reduce spending or increase
taxes to produce the balanced federal budget it wants to require as a
constitutional amendment.